How do I stop being bitter about rich classmates with perfect childhoods?

Question

I grew up on a poor farm in the Caribbean, and let me tell you farming in the caribeean is not about machinery like in America, it's hard, back-breaking manual labor in the merciless tropical sun.

I see all these happy white kids who lived their perfect lives in comfortable, white picket fence suburbia, and I can't help being bitter and angry about it.

Can soemone help me?

Answer 1

Anger and bitter is about envy. So you didn't have it best, and it was tough. Happy white kids can be miserable also. My son was/is a happy, white kid...to the outside world. Inside, he cried all of the time. I worked three jobs to provide for him and his sister; my neighbors would drive by towing a boat, never asking them to go to the lake with them. My son and I joked that one day we would have enough money to go shopping together at the local mall. We never made it, as we never had the money. Right now I live on $800 a month, and have just enough to pay medical bills. My kids have just enough to live on, also. We look like we have it all, and we do, because we have happiness from not being bitter and angry at others. Life isn't fair, but in the end, it's who you see looking back at you in the mirror that counts.
The way to poor self-esteem and low confidence is to compare yourself to others. Get out there, do your best every day, and you will have something. Not lots of money, but not on welfare. Not the biggest house, but one that you can pay for monthly. Not a Cadillac, but a car that is yours honestly.
I live in Southern California, 115 degrees F in the summer. I still get out and work, sweat, and toil for what I have. I'm 70 and still waiting for MY ship to come in. Happy, white kids. Brown Mexican kids. Yellow Chinese kids. It doesn't matter...everyone can love themselves, their neighbor and work as hard as you can to be honest. Happy is what you see when you look at the heart, not the face. Anyone can smile; not everyone can be caring and compassionate.

I can't give you a fish, but I can teach you how to fish. No handouts, but lots of love to you and God bless you. Open those two eyes that you are blessed with and find someone to help. Focus on the positive. What blessing do you have today?
Be happy. Life sucks, but some days you just won't care about any color of any face. You will just smile because you can.

Answer 2

You may be seeing the children of people who worked like your family so their children...or grandchildren...could have the white picket fence suburbia. You can give this to yourself and your children if you work hard, educate yourself and realize the only person who will get you to where you want to be is YOU! Not a governement, but you!

Actually those perfect childhoods are a myth. Many are from broken homes, home where parents are absent, abusive, ignore their child (here kid, take this money and go away). Give me a poor family where the children are loved and nurtured over a rich family where the kids are ignored or expected to live their parent's dreams, not their own.

We have to learn to throw off our unhappiness and resentment, it only burns our soul. When my dear friend walked out of a Nazi prison camp with her mother at WWII's end her mother said, "Don't look back. What happened happend, we can't change it. It is over. We begin our lives right now. We will either drown in our memories or we will fly with our new lives."

Answer 3

well here is a REALLY good reason not to be bitter: While you were working in the farm these kids have been pampered. yeah sure! But you have work experience. These kids know nothing about living in the not do great houses and working their butts off for money and comfort. All they know is that their parents always gave them money.YOU on the otherhand will live a good life now that you know how to work for it.
So these kids will not have the greatest life since been pampered all day had gotten them LAZY! i am one of those kids. No im not being pampered.yes i hate to clean and work but i am ready to do anything to get my ideal csareer. My parents do not drag me shopping every day and i don't have about ten pairs of shoes. I am 13 and i have to take an hour long bus ride to and from school or the other option is train and another bus. I only get enough money each week to pay for bus and train. I feel very unhappy that i can't be you! I would love to work on a farm for a few years and learn what its like to really work for a good life.
email me for any more questions!:) :)

Answer 4

People cannot help which families that they were born into. Just because that had more money than you did their lives were not perfect. They had problems also they were just different from yours. Don't compare your life to someone elses. Theirs will always seem better and a lot of the time it isn't. Your childhood gave you a good work ethic and an appreciation to hard work and accomplishment. Those are good qualities to have. Try to empathize with other people. I would not begrudge them because they had more money than you did. You might have had things that they did not. It is just not evident by looking at them. Just like you don't want them to look down on you for being poor, don't look down on them because they weren't.I really don't know how to tell you to stop doing this though.

Answer 5

I know it's hard, but you have to try not to let it bother you.

Think of the positive side:

If something terrible happened and to earn a wage the "happy white kids" had to work on a farm 9like the depression in the 1930s) would they be able to do it? No, they wouldn't.

You, however possess a skill that many of your peers don't and that makes you superior in a little way.

Also, those white picket fence people don't have perfect lives I'm sure. I'll bet that their parents are working all the hours God sends to support their lifestyle and never even see their children.

hope this helps

Answer 6

You shouldn't be bitter or angry! The fact of the matter is that you have more soul than these people. You're probably more knowledgable in the combination of beauty and pain that is life than they will ever be.
You need to realize that though your childhood may have been tough, you've grown into an experienced person for it,- one with more human depth and knowledge of the world than these individuals, who not only have probably never had to work hard for anything in their entire lives but who also probably lack realistic expectations and seek the wrong things out of life.
I believe that people are ultimately made better by their adversities if they can learn from them.

You sound like a person who wants more out of life than money and/or fame.
-Good Luck

Answer 7

Darling I live in a house with a white picket fence - I am 63 and been b---dy poor all my life. I am white, colour don't matter, and you fight your angst and bitterness because despite every thing you want to be a decent and caring human being - don't you? I face each day now on oxygen - you want hell - I got it babe - so no more self sorry bitter words or thoughts pet. You are young your future could take a turn for the better as long as you are mobile (I am not) and healthy (I am not) tell you what tho' I am still glad to be alive! Stand up tall and be confident in yourself, be healthy be happy((((HUG))))

Answer 8

I understand because I went through the same exact thing. Except I come from a very poor broken up family from the border...

Bottom line is you need to quit worrying about others and their lives. Make it your priority to better yourself in every way possible. You are so much more valuable then those rich kids because you have an understanding of what it means to not have what you want when you want but to work hard for what you want. This also helps you value even more the opportunity you have to get an education. You're ahead of the game because you understand what the reall world is about. You should be proud of yourself and forget about them.

Answer 9

Well I'm new to this answering thing but I'd like to say something. First, you might want to look behind the smile of your so called perfect white friends and realize that everyone including the white people have hard times. They may not have been as hard as your farm days in the Caribbean but everyone has problems. You should maybe look to them for advice instead of getting jelous. Who knows maybe with a little advice you might be able to live comfortably like them. Secondly, I am mixed with white and have lived in both poor and rich neighborhoods and I have smiled and lived comfortably in both situations. Life is what you make it. You have to live with it and through it. If you want to be happy just be content with your life and set goals for your future.

Answer 10

oh my
i went to a private school with kids who were rich, and while they seemed happy on the surface, they werent. Wealth alwasy brings out a whole new set of problems.
Dont be that jealous. See, you will grow up appreciating what you have and knowing that you have had to work for life. They will have no concept of that. When the money stops flowing or the bottom falls out they wont know what to do.
And PS. ALOT of Americans are not as "rich" as they seem. Many are neck-high in debt. Just bc somebody has a BMW dosnt mean they can afford it! These ppl may not be that wealthy at all....they might just look like it on the outside.